Conference to Lead a New ‘Pro Abundant Life’ Movement
Care Net, a nonprofit ministry that supports one of the nation’s largest network of pregnancy centers, kicked off its 33rd annual conference this morning at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort. The conference is the nation’s largest yearly gathering of pregnancy center and church leaders and, this year, is ground zero for transforming the pro-life movement into the “pro abundant life” movement.
The conference theme, “Pro Abundant Life: Choose Jesus, Life, and Family,” communicates Care Net’s call to expand the vision of pregnancy center ministry from saving the unborn to also emphasizing the importance of spiritual transformation and family strengthening.
“As leaders in the pregnancy center movement, we must begin to address the surrounding worldview that leads to unplanned pregnancies and abortion decisions,” said Roland C. Warren, president and CEO of Care Net. “We must recognize that the decisions that lead to broken wombs start in broken hearts. This is why we must become “pro abundant life” people. This represents more than a shift in rhetoric, but a fundamental shift in our approach to abortion, requiring a focus on four key areas: marriage, fatherhood, Christ, and culture change.”
The conference will draw over 1,200 pregnancy center, pro-life, church, and ministry leaders and will offer opportunities for training and support to help attendees enhance their efforts to help women and men make tough pregnancy decisions and to get the life support they need once they make their decision.
According to Care Net’s just-released “2016 Impact Report,” the organization, through its network of over 1,100 affiliated pregnancy centers, has saved 564,112 lives in the last eight years. Moreover, Care Net-affiliated pregnancy centers have provided 823,186 no-cost ultrasound scans, 940,00 clients have received parenting support and education, more than 1.3 million people heard the Gospel, nearly 1.4 million people received material resources, and 2.3 million no-cost pregnancy tests were given at the centers in those eight years. These services, provided completely free to pregnancy center clients, saved communities over $56 million in each of the last two years, for a total of over $112 million of free services provided. This data is collected annually from Care Net’s affiliated pregnancy centers and Care Net’s Pregnancy Decision Line, the only national hotline providing immediate pregnancy decision coaching.
This year’s National Conference will be focused on exploring ways to optimize the compassionate care that pregnancy centers provide to their clients. It will also provide guidance on how the movement can take steps to include churches as key sites where pregnancy decision coaching can take place via Care Net’s new Making Life Disciples program. New promising practices will be revealed to help leaders create more effective programming aimed at engaging men and fathers around their roles and responsibilities with parenting and marriage. A Millennial Forum will be hosted by Axis and Dr. Kathy Koch to train leaders on how to effectively address tough issues with Millennials.
Keynote speakers include Roland C. Warren; Dr. Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; pediatrician, mother, and bestselling author, Dr. Meg Meeker; and actor Kevin Sorbo.
Care Net will also continue a feature introduced in 2015 called NET Talks, in which a variety of speakers will give short, inspirational talks on topics such as leadership, spirituality, marketing, and other relevant topics.
Additionally, Care Net, through its partnership with Regent University, will award a full-ride tuition scholarship to Amanda Gillard of Athens, TN. Amanda — a client of Outlook Women’s Services in Athens, a Care Net affiliate — will accept her award at the banquet dinner on Friday evening. A variety of other awards will be given to centers for diverse accomplishments in offering the highest level of compassionate care to their clients.
The conference begins today with a day of pre-conference workshops and concludes Friday evening with the dinner and awards banquet. A full schedule is listed at Care Net’s website.
Founded in 1975, Care Net supports one of the largest networks of pregnancy centers in North America and runs the nation’s only real-time call center providing pregnancy decision coaching.
(Source: Christian Newswire)
